This week, we examine a rise in sex toy injuries, the careful marketing sex toy retailers in India must employ to dodge the country's restrictive laws, and the "wankband," which harnesses the power of masturbation to create energy.

This Week in Sex is a weekly summary of news and research related to sexual behavior, sexuality education, contraception, STIs, and more.

Sex Toy Injuries on the Rise

According to estimates released last month from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, sex toy injuries have more than doubled in recent years. Based on a representative survey of hospital emergency room data from around the country, the agency estimates the number of injuries that are caused by all kinds of consumer products, including “massage devices and vibrators.” According to the estimates—and a Washington Post analysis—emergency room visits peaked in 2012, when 2,500 people were treated for sex toy injuries, compared to slightly more than 1,000 in 2003.

Men accounted for 58 percent of the visits, and the men who seek treatment were generally older (average age 44) than the women (average age 30). The oldest man to be treated was 81, the oldest woman 67. By far the most frequent reason for the visit was foreign body extraction, which was required in 83 percent of the cases.

Most of the injuries were pretty minor—of those patients who accepted treatment, 71 percent were released right afterward. Twenty-five percent, however, required hospitalization or a transfer to another facility. Nobody died.

Still, the sex educator in me feels compelled to note that it is important to be safe when using sex toys. A recent story of a sex toy lodged near a woman’s uterus for more than ten years notwithstanding, few things get stuck or lost in the vagina—it is only about six inches long and it stops at the entrance to the uterus, which would not let a sex toy go farther. Most of the extractions were likely necessary because toys that were not specifically designed for the purpose were inserted into the anus. This can be dangerous, as the anus is a muscle that expands and has no natural stopping point on the inside. Using butt plugs or other sex toys that have a wider base (that stays outside the anus) is the best way to keep yourself and your partner(s) off of the sex toy injury list.

The Growth of India’s Online Sexual Wellness Market

Buying a sex toy in India is not as easy as walking into the local Walmart—or even the sex shop in the sketchy part of town—because of age-old restrictive laws that limit what can be sold and how it can be marketed. Most sex toy crackdowns in the country rely on Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code, which says that any book, drawing, figure, or object “shall be deemed to be obscene” if it fuels lascivious, or overtly sexual, thoughts and behavior. A newer law applies the same language to the Internet.

Sex toys are pretty much designed to fuel overtly sexual thoughts and behavior, but that doesn’t mean they are unavailable. In fact there’s a growing market for sexual wellness in the country, especially online. Healthkart, one of India’s leading online marketplaces, reports that the number of women buying lubricants, condoms, fertility supplements, and sexual accessories has grown by 75 percent in the last year alone. Some estimate this market to be worth $1.4 billion by 2020 (though this would be a gigantic leap from the $161 million it earned last year).

Whether these sales violate the law has everything to do with the products and the marketing techniques. Vaibhav Parikh, a partner at international law firm Nishith Desai Associates, explained it this way to Quartz India: “Some products fall into the grey area and depend on circumstances—a massager is legal, but one that is shaped like a private part is considered to be illegal.” When the courts decide these cases, he said, they usually look at whether a product or the way it was advertised made people act with a “depraved mindset.”

By offering these items under categories like personal health and care, online sellers try to be subtle about the purpose of their products.

Unfortunately, there is another challenge looming. An official in India’s Supreme Court filed a complaint against online retailers Snapdeal and Ohmysecret (which has already gone out of business) for selling anal lube and vibrators shaped like penises. Suhaas Joshi, who filed the complaint, is arguing that these products violate the country’s anti-homosexuality laws as well as the anti-obscenity ones. He told Quartz India, “There is a lot of confusion. Companies are selling products which are used for same sex activity, but at the same time, Indian government says such acts are illegal.” The police were asked to investigate and a report is expected this month.

In the meantime, people in India are finding ways to sell and buy sex toys. Ira Trivedi, author of India in Love, told Quartz India, “Yes there is censorship, yes it’s under the radar, but people are trying to get around that.”

Harnessing the Power of Masturbation

Remember back in middle school science class when you learned that you could power a lightbulb with a potato? Yeah, well this is like that. Kind of.

The latest in wearable technology is being brought to us by PornHub, a British site for adult entertainment. The site notes in a charming video that by providing reasons for people to stay online, it has contributed to our global power problems. However, it promises, it can now be part of the solution. Man power, as they call it, can be an endlessly renewable source of electricity.

To harness this power, they have developed the wankband, which is worn on the wrist. When said wrist is moved up and down repeatedly, the band creates and stores kinetic energy. The makers promise the band is unisex, though the motion required may not be quite as useful for people with certain parts as it is for others.

Once enough energy has been generated, users can charge their laptops, cell phones, and other devices by plugging them into the band’s built-in USB port. It’s that simple. And fun.

The device is in beta testing now, and PornHub has not yet said how many hours of masturbation equals an hour of cellphone charge—but we can already say we’ll never look at low battery warning the same way again.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/03/06/week-sex-lets-get-digital-digital/feed/0This Week in Sex: New York Takes on Condoms-as-Evidence, and the FDA Approves New Use for HPV Testhttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/05/02/week-sex-new-york-takes-condoms-evidence-fda-approves-new-hpv-test/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=week-sex-new-york-takes-condoms-evidence-fda-approves-new-hpv-test
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/05/02/week-sex-new-york-takes-condoms-evidence-fda-approves-new-hpv-test/#commentsFri, 02 May 2014 20:26:49 +0000http://rhrealitycheck.org/?p=38596

This week, New York state lawmakers took on a policy of using condoms as evidence of prostitution, a plan to sell condoms in middle and high schools in China met some skepticism, and the FDA approved a panel suggestion about HPV test. Plus, happy Masturbation Month!

This Week in Sex is a weekly summary of news and research related to sexual behavior, sexuality education, contraception, STIs, and more.

An End to New York’s Condoms-as-Evidence Policy?

As RH Reality Check has reported in the past, New York City police officers have historically used possession of condoms—especially a large number of condoms—as proof of prostitution, as is the case in some other cities as well. Officers would even confiscate condoms from people suspected of selling sex. From a public health perspective, this policy makes no sense; it discourages sex workers from carrying condoms and, in some instances, takes them away, thereby preventing sex workers from protecting themselves. Thankfully, a new law working its way through the state legislature would get rid of this policy once and for all.

Since the practice made headlines, in part because of reports written by the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center, some law enforcement officials have tried to back away from it. Last June, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes sent a letter to then-Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explaining that his office would no longer use the possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution or “loitering for the purpose of prostitution.” He asked that police in Brooklyn stop confiscating condoms. Prosecutors in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx did not go that far but did tell the New York Times last year that they rarely use condoms as evidence of prostitution.

Efforts to abolish the practice through state law, however, have been unsuccessful, in part because the New York City Police Department, which makes about 2,500 arrests for prostitution each year, has been opposed to such legislation. But this time the bill has some traction. It was passed by the assembly last year, and advocates hope it will be passed by the state senate when that body reconvenes this month. The current version of the bill is sponsored by Assembly member Barbara Clark (D-Queens Village) and Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn). A spokesperson for Sen. Montgomery was optimistic about the bill’s chances, saying it “has buzz.” She told BuzzFeed, “The bill has been introduced now for probably over 15 years. Little by little by little, the momentum picked up on this through education. Most people are astounded that this practice is even occurring.”

According the Associated Press, the New York City Police Department announced last Friday that it would review the proposed law as well as its own condoms-as-evidence policy.

China Contemplates Condom Availability in High School

Here in the United States, making condoms available in high school remains controversial, despite years of research that suggests access to condoms does not increase sexual activity among students but does increase condom use. Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out strongly in favor of making condoms available to young people, including in schools. As RH Reality Check has reported, however, even with such professional support, condoms in schools can be a tough sell with parents.

It turns out that this is something parents in the United States share with some parents in China, who are concerned about a move to sell condoms in middle and high schools in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province. The plan, which was approved by provincial officials in February and city officials in April, will allow students in middle schools, which start at age 12, and high schools, which start at age 15, to buy condoms either from the school store or from vending machines that the school would have to install. A city health official who was not named told the local paper, “We’re not going distribute condoms at schools, but we want them to be sold on the premises.”

The official went on to say that the measure was designed to prevent the spread of HIV. The rates of HIV in Xi’an have gone up dramatically in the last few years, with more than 1,100 infections reported between January and October 2013 alone. The local newspaper says that most infections are in young people and manual laborers, and 90 percent of transmission is through sexual behavior.

According to the New York Times, reaction to the proposal has been mixed, with some fearing that having condoms for sale in school will lead to promiscuity. It is unclear, however, if anyone is objecting to the fact that the condoms are only available to students who buy them. This seems to be an unnecessary obstacle, especially if some students can’t afford them or have to ask their parents for spending money. Thankfully, in all of the debate over whether condoms should be available in high schools in the United States, the idea of selling them, as opposed to giving them away, seems to have never come up.

FDA Approves Alternative to Pap Test

As RH Reality Checkrecently reported, at the beginning of April a committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously to change the recommendations around testing for cervical cancer. Though the Pap test had long reigned as the best screening tool, clinicians have been relying more and more on human papillomavirus (HPV)tests—either in conjunction with the Pap or after an abnormal Pap result. The test in question, called the cobas test, uses samples of cervical cells to detect DNA from 14 high-risk strains of HPV, including types 16 and 18, which are known to cause 70 percent of all cervical cancers.

This week, the FDA voted to accept the panel’s recommendations. According to an FDA press release, the approval expands the use of the cobas test so that clinicians can use it along with the Pap test or on its own as a primary screening tool for cervical cancer. The announcement does not, however, change the guidelines for testing, which are produced by groups other than the FDA.

May Is Masturbation Month!

Finally, here at This Week in Sex, we want to remind you that May is Masturbation Month. We believe that masturbation is one of the best sexual behaviors because it feels good and relieves stress, and can’t get you pregnant or get a sexually transmitted disease. Even better, you don’t have to think about anyone but yourself—as long as you’re having fun, all is good. We hope everyone enjoys this month-long celebration!

The hands of the male fetus may sometimes appear to be gripping its genitals. And that, says Rep. Michael Burgess, is why abortion should be banned even earlier in pregnancy than the GOP is seeking in a bill on its way to the floor.

As the House of Representatives gears up for Tuesday’s debate on HR 1797, a bill that would outlaw virtually all abortions 20 weeks post fertilization, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) argued in favor of banning abortions even earlier in pregnancy because, he said, male fetuses that age were already, shall we say, spanking the monkey.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

That observation led Burgess to say he had argued for the abortion ban to start at a much earlier stage of gestation, 15 or 16 weeks. (This is less than halfway through a pregnancy.) He appeared to liken Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, to the 1893 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that formally legalized racial segregation, and was not fully reversed until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The rationale for the Republican bill, which advanced through the House Judiciary last week on a near-total party-line vote, is one scientifically disputed study, touted by Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) in his opening remarks at today’s Rules Committee hearing, that asserts fetuses can feel pain as early as 20 weeks after sperm meets egg.

“Well, I think all the members are cognizant of the fact that this is not a Congress that cares much about science,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Rules Committee’s ranking member, in her questioning of Goodlatte, who refuted that claim by saying that since 1973, the year when the Supreme Court legalized abortion, much more had been learned about fetal development.

Major medical bodies in the United States and the United Kingdom have refuted the claim of fetal pain before the third trimester.

The 20-week abortion ban, if passed into law, would set up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which allows abortion up to the point of fetal viability outside the womb, and mandates exceptions for abortions in the case of pregnancies that threaten the life or health of the woman.

When first drafted, the 20-week ban was meant to apply only to the District of Columbia, over which Congress has a great deal of control. But with the arrest and murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell, who ran an illegal abortion clinic in Philadelphia, right-wing forces have sought to use justifiable public revulsion at Gosnell’s actions to further restrict women’s rights—and in contradiction to the common right-wing assertion of state sovereignty.

Former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, speaking before a right-wing gathering in Washington, DC, last week, put it this way: “This is a time for the pro-life movement like we have not had in decades. We must seize the moment.”

Goodlatte, in his opening statement, framed the ban as a measure to prevent practices such as Gosnell’s, a conflation that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) termed “a red herring” which, he said, had nothing to do with the way abortion is practiced in legal clinics.

Rebutting Goodlatte’s pronouncements on the stage of development at which fetuses feel pain, Nadler (D-NY) noted doubts that the study’s own author, Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, MD, had about its assertions, having stated in 2005 testimony that evidence of fetal pain in the second trimester of pregnancy “was uncertain.”

Nadler also took issue with the tepid exception to the ban for women who were pregnant through rape or incest—a measure added last minute after Rep. Trent Franks, the bill’s sponsor, said at last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is low. With the 2014 midterm elections looming, GOP leaders scrambled to avoid the kind of fallout encountered in 2012 when Republican senatorial candidates Todd Akin (MO) and Richard Mourdock (IN) saw their campaigns tank after making comments about rape, pregnancy, and abortion.

The exception applies only to women who “first reported the rape or the incest to the authorities,” Nadler said, and, in the case of incest, the exception applied only to minors, even if an adult woman had been abused by the relative who had impregnated her since she was a child.

“It would be great if every rape or assault would be reported,” Nadler said, but the Republicans’ last-minute amendment—made after Republicans in the Judiciary Committee rejected a rape-and-incest exception offered by the Democrats—made no allowance for the toll often taken on rape victims in the judicial system, he said, including sometimes facing death threats from the friends and neighbors of the perpetrator.

“So, the authors of this bill apparently believe that women are too dishonest to be believed when they say they were raped or the victims of incest,” Nadler said. “It is Congress siding with her abuser…”.

There is also no protection for the health of the woman in the bill, nor an exception allowing for saving the life of the woman, except in terms defined so narrowly, Nadler continued, as to be virtually useless.

Democrats have been quick to note, as Slaughter did in the Rules Committee hearing, that the Republicans who voted the bill to the floor in the House Judiciary Committee were all men, due to the fact that the GOP hasn’t appointed a single woman to one of Congress’ most important committees.

So, when the 20-week abortion ban bill—deceptively titled the “Pain-Capable Infant Protection Act” —comes to the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, you won’t find Trent Franks managing the floor debate. Instead, GOP leaders have tapped the ardently anti-choice Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to lead that charge.

Update: See video of Burgess’ comments above, at right. (H/T to AmericaBlog for earlier version of video.)

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/17/texas-congressman-masturbating-fetuses-prove-need-for-abortion-ban/feed/727Get Real! What to Do When Sex Has Only Either Felt Painful or Like Nothing?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/05/10/get-real-what-to-do-when-sex-has-only-either-felt-painful-or-like-nothing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-real-what-to-do-when-sex-has-only-either-felt-painful-or-like-nothing
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/05/10/get-real-what-to-do-when-sex-has-only-either-felt-painful-or-like-nothing/#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 21:17:24 +0000http://rhrealitycheck.org/?p=17040

It either hurts or feels like nothing. You don't know what to do, or what's wrong, and your partner is handling it really poorly. Here's some information and advice to the rescue.

I seem to not be able to feel any sort of pleasure from anything sexual. I’m 17 and have never been able to achieve an orgasm. It hurts being fingered. I’ve never been able to masturbate, because I could not keep focus or it started hurting. It also feels too awkward. When my boyfriend tried doing it, it hurt. He tried giving me oral sex, but that was painful. I tell him it hurts, and he tries to go as gently as he can, but it still hurts. I’m frustrated because I get no satisfaction, and my boyfriend’s self esteem is damaged because he thinks it’s his fault. We lost our virginities to each other a couple of months ago. It hurt a lot the first two times. After it stopped hurting, it just felt like nothing. I didn’t have the heart to tell my boyfriend until recently that I don’t feel anything. Now he’s really upset because he feels like a pig and that he used me. He says I subconsciously don’t love him, and that’s why I don’t feel anything.

It seems like I’m the only one with the problem of not being able to feel anything during sex AND clitoral stimulation hurts.

My boyfriend was hesitant to try to please me in the first place because he’s inexperienced and gets frustrated. He gets upset he can’t reciprocate. I don’t expect him to just know what I like. I should be comfortable enough with my body to be able to show him what to do, but if nothing feels good, I have nothing to show him. It is extremely frustrating, because I do get turned on and wet, but end up disappointed, dissatisfied, and annoyed.

Is this more likely to be a psychological or physical issue? I am a little insecure. I also suspect a reason might have been because we had unprotected sex and I might have been nervous, or the fact that we might have gotten caught so I was distracted. Our relationship is in no way sex-centered, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t effect us. We love each other a lot, and my boyfriend would like to be able to give me the sensations that I am able to give him.

Heather Corinna replies:

I want to start with the idea that you are the only one who is having the troubles you’re having. You’re not.

We often hear from folks so sure they are 100 percent alone and unique in whatever is going on with them, though almost always, we’ve not only heard from someone before with the same or similar issues, but from plenty of someones. It’s so easy for people to think their sexual issues are unique because most have so little candid and truly diverse talk about sexuality in their lives, but those of us who work in sexuality know the truly unique sexual issue, which only one person has, is basically a unicorn. It can help to remember that there are billions of people in the world, and there’s probably not any human experience or state totally unique to any of us, including with sex. To give you an example, here are a few other folks’ questions posted recently at our website alone (some similarly convinced it’s only them):

evilekat asks:

I don’t get pleasure out of sex (oral or vaginal). It just doesn’t feel good at all, sometimes it’s just downright uncomfortable. Even when I am aroused, I get no pleasure whatsoever. Masturbating does nothing for me either. It sucks because I want to be able to have an orgasm and I want my boyfriend to feel like he is actually good at sex. It makes me feel like a freak, do I have faulty nerves or something? I don’t know anyone with my problem, some don’t like to have sex, some can’t orgasm, but no one has problems with all of the above and gets no pleasure at all out of sexual activity. Is there something wrong with me? Help!

nzchick asks:

My boyfriend and I had anal sex but neither of us felt anything once he penetrated or while he was in. I felt him go in but that was it. I’m a virgin and neither of us has had anal sex before we were both left really confused. This can’t be normal!

Nmik63 asks:

Me and my boyfriend decided to have sex for the first time. But anyway, while he was doing it, I didn’t feel anything, like anything at all. I was aroused and all that good stuff, but I didn’t feel any pleasure… please help!

SweetAddiction asks:

When I finger myself its real tight but I either feel nothing or pain? Does that mean I’m putting my finger in the wrong spot?

See? It’s so not just you.

Not feeling anything at all, or feeling very little, with any kind of genital sex where the most sensory parts of the genitals are being stimulated is typically an indication someone is just not very aroused or as aroused as they need to be. We don’t all need to be turned on to the same degree to have various kinds of sex feel pleasurable, but sometimes or for some people more than others, being as amped up as possible is key. And whenever we are highly aroused, every kind of sex, including touch with parts besides our genitals, is always going to feel more intense.

Our genitals are incredibly sensitive, but how sensitive they are has a lot to do with if we’re very sexually excited or not, which is why when we, say, wipe after toileting, wash ourselves in the bath, or have a pelvic exam, we’re not usually in wild throes of ecstasy. Most of arousal, pleasure, and sexual response are about our brains and central nervous systems. If there’s not a whole lot of the good stuff going on upstairs and throughout those systems, there’s not going to be a lot going on below. When we are aroused, our whole bodies, including our genitals, get way more sensitive and responsive than when we’re not, so when we’re not feeling anything at all with genital touch, it really is very unlikely we are earnestly and strongly aroused. Also, when we’re sexually excited and really feeling good emotionally—rather than anxious, fearful, insecure, or frustrated—because of how our brain affects our biochemistry, things that might normally hurt more hurt less, and we’re more likely to feel pleasure, when otherwise we may feel pain.

In terms of your genitals specifically, a bunch of different things happen, beyond just self-lubrication (which can also happen as part of your fertility cycle): The cervix and uterus pull backwards, the back of the vagina tents and becomes more spacious, the walls of the vagina fill with blood, and the vulva looks different, with a puffier mons and outer and inner labia and a deeper color. And like the penis, the clitoris becomes erect, and not just the glans and hood you can see on the outside, but the internal portions as well, which make the front of the vagina feel more compact, full, and a lot more sensitive inside (inside the first third, anyway—the back portion only gets so sensitive). And those are just the parts about your genitals; there’s a whole lot of other stuff that often happens with your whole body and in your mind when you’re really turned on, like a faster heart rate and breathing, skin flushing, and pupil dilation. Also our intellectual and emotional sexual feelings can be headier, floatier, more spinny, loud and free-flowing, and sometimes even scary, depending on how comfortable we are with those feelings and who we’re having them with.

Being fully aroused takes a bit of an odd combo of being both keyed up but also relaxed, in our bodies and our minds, of being very in the moment and focused on the experience we’re having, but not too focused on any one part or on a given goal or outcome. If you’ve ever made Hollandaise sauce, it’s a lot like that; it seems like only a few simple ingredients that should be so easy to mix and make delicious, but it’s a very delicate balance that can turn on you so easily, leaving you with a weird half-coagulated mess instead of a delicious thick sauce if just one little thing goes amiss.

One tricky thing that often comes up with younger people, and more commonly with women, is a clear difficulty in correctly identifying what it really is to be and feel fully aroused. (And here’s a hint: the level to which we can become aroused is often lower in our teens and 20s, particularly for women, than it will be later for physiological, chemical, intellectual, interpersonal, and identity-based reasons.) It’s not just about loving someone, for instance. Sometimes that has absolutely nothing to do with love at all. There are a lot of messages in the world that say if women just love someone enough, the sex will be good and the chemistry will be there, even though things don’t play out that way much of the time. It’s not just about thinking a partner looks hot, or about a partner, period. How we feel about ourselves has as much to do with how aroused we are as how we feel about our partners. It’s also not just about someone doing the “right” things in how they touch us. How we feel before we’re even touched at all is usually a huge deal. What’s going on emotionally between us also plays a big part, so a skillful set of fingers can easily be of no use when they’re attached to someone with a crummy attitude.

There’s a lot to feeling fully, over-the-top aroused, from our own lifelong and present sense of self, body, and sexuality to being really excited by and comfortable with our sexual partners, to how we feel and what state our bodies are in at any given time. (Did we sleep well? Are we stressed out about school? Are we hungry? Having relationship problems? Do we have a bunch of zits making us feel not at all sexy?) I don’t mean to second-guess you when you say you are really turned on, but some of what you’re reporting here not only suggests you’re probably not, but that it’d be awfully hard to be.

You identify some things I suspect have inhibited you from getting as turned on as you probably can: discomfort with masturbation (which often is about discomfort with your own body or sexual shame), a partner who becomes easily frustrated, not protecting yourself from big risks, fear of being caught having sex, some insecurity of your own, and coming to any of this likely expecting to be frustrated, dissatisfied, and annoyed and also expecting your partner to be, since that’s what keeps happening. There are also some common threads in your question and some of the other similar questions, like having sexual motives about making an insecure partner feel validated, being new to partnered sex, and putting a lot on genital sex (rather than other whole-body or other-body-part sexual activities). Just one of those things could be a big inhibitor of arousal and sexual response, but all of them are a serious whammy. I’d be so surprised if you were feeling pleasure and were earnestly very turned on that I’d probably call the press.

But what we or our partners are doing in terms of touch does also matter. Not everyone likes the same sexual things, experiences pleasure (or pain) from the same things, or likes a given thing done a given way. Like anything else, sex is something we learn over time and get better at with practice—way more than a few weeks or months of it. We’re always learning anew with every new partner, and throughout our whole lives, we continue learning about our own sexuality and sexual response, not only because there’s a lot to learn, but because it doesn’t tend to stay exactly the same from day to day, year to year, or decade to decade. When you or any partners are new to sex, you’ve all got to be able to feel pretty OK with being a beginner and embrace that, rather than get pissed off about it. Everyone involved needs to be pretty creative and open to experimentation, as well as open and comfortable with the fact that some things will be easier than others, and some things will involve way more experimentation than others. If you have a partner who is profoundly uncomfortable with being new to sex and experimenting, and who also is clearly very product-oriented or goal-oriented, reticent to experiment because they want certain results or have a desperate need to be validated, rather than just wanting to engage in the process no matter what comes out of it, that’s going to be a huge barrier to having enjoyable sex with that partner.

The pain you’re having, and which it seems you have had in the past with masturbation before this, is something I would be sure to see a sexual health-care provider about. Sure, it could be psychological, in whole or in part. Since you mostly seem to be talking about clitoral pain, it could be about the way you’re touching yourself or the way someone else is touching you—that touch may be too rough, intense, or fast. There are more sensory nerve endings packed into that relatively small clitoral glans than any part of any gender‘s body, so a lot of folks find that less is more with that body part. You may need to experiment more on your own and with partners, trying things like more indirect stimulation (like rubbing through the outer labia or mons, or only rubbing lightly over the hood), and/or making sure that when you experiment, it’s because you have strong sexual desires, rather than doing it to appease a partner or to try and make something happen for you just because you think it’s supposed to. Alternately, you may want to check in about those feelings of awkwardness and lack of focus you’re having and see if maybe you’re just not feeling that sexual right now in your life, and if not, just let it go for now. No one has to masturbate or have sex. There can be times in our lives and sexual development when we don’t because it just doesn’t feel right.

However, that pain could also be about, or made more severe by, a health issue, and if it is, all of this stuff about arousal may not be very relevant. Conditions like vulvar vestibulitis, lichen sclerosis, an accumulation of sebum under the clitoral hood (clitoral adhesions), a compressed nerve or a Bartholin’s gland cyst can cause pain like you’re experiencing. Issues like those will require treatment for pain to stop or decrease. Even things that seem like they could be minor or which you may not even think to look into, like a borderline urinary tract infection (UTI) or yeast infection or a sensitivity to certain detergents, a partner’s toothpaste, or menstrual products can be culprits or contributors. So, I’d suggest you make an appointment with a gynecologist to see if anything is up before you have any kind of genital sex again. In the future, if you’re having pain anywhere in your body that clearly isn’t temporary, you always want to ask a health-care provider about it when you can rather than suffering without looking into why.

I’m hearing some clear statements that sound like it is simply not at all the right time for you and your boyfriend to be sexual together. You voice that both of you are having issues with insecurity. You voice that he seems to have an inability to separate love from sex, and is not understanding that how much someone loves someone else is not necessarily going to have anything to do with their sexual response. You could not love someone at all and still have the time of your sexual life with them, after all—this isn’t likely about love. Unless the two of you are trying to create a pregnancy, you are voicing that one or both of you isn’t ready to consistently reduce risks with the sex you’re having, or that you don’t have the assertiveness, support, or the comfort in your relationship needed to protect yourself from outcomes you don’t want and which I suspect he isn’t even remotely ready to handle well.

I’m a bothered by his saying to you that he he feels like a “pig” who “used you” in this context, because it kind of suggests that it’s your fault, and that if your body would just react the way he wants it to, he’d feel differently. That really isn’t cool. You only have so much control over your body, and a statement like that implies, to me, that he has his own sexual issues to work out that no kind of sex with you will magically fix.

Now, maybe he needs to work on his social and communication skills some to figure out how to voice things like that in a way that isn’t so crappy and accusatory. For instance, he could have said, “I’m worried that if I’m feeling pleasure and you’re not, I’m taking advantage or not being a good partner to you. Do you think that?” At the same time, a statement like he made seems to go with things like refusing to believe that you love him because you’re not digging the sex yet, that he knows your own heart and mind better than you do in that respect, and suggesting you’re making him feel like a pig because he’s feeling pleasure and you’re not yet. And all of that combined sets off my radar.

Self-esteem, to be clear, is about our value of our whole selves—not just who we are in a relationship, who we are as a romantic or sexual partner to anyone, or who we are in bed. I sincerely doubt that you not feeling something physically or not responding to sex like it was the best sex ever damaged your boyfriend’s self-esteem. If he feels it took a major hit because you aren’t feeling a given thing physically, that suggests his esteem was either incredibly low to begin with and that he is putting too much of it put into sex or romance, or that he’s, well, being a drama queen. Something a lot of people don’t account for with sex is how it really can dredge up some challenging, tricky emotional stuff we either may not have seen in ourselves before, or may not have felt as acutely. We’re not always ready for that or up to dealing with it at given times in our lives or relationships. Something a lot of people don’t consider in choosing who to be sexual with is where that person’s emotional maturity really is. Someone as insecure as he sounds like probably needs to do some growing before he can handle being a sexual partner.

It’s going to be awfully hard to get very sexually excited and stay very excited with some of the dynamics going on here. When we aren’t feeling what we’d like to in our bodies, or they aren’t reacting the way we think they should, that’s both frustrating and kind of scary. Good partners are able to comfort us at those times, rather than making it about them. I’m concerned about the dynamics you’re describing not just because it seems unlikely either of you are going to have enjoyable sexual experiences with them afoot, but because I suspect they’re going to leave one or both of you feeling bad or crappy, and emotionally and interpersonally precarious. If these kinds of dynamics are happening outside sex, I’m concerned this relationship may not even be all that healthy, but that’s not something I can assess without more information about the whole relationship. It’s certainly something you can look into, though, and you may find this link and this one helpful for doing that.

The best advice I have based on what you told me is to step back from sex in this relationship for now—not just intercourse, but all genital sex. Just put it on the back burner for at least a little while. Just because we have sex once, or twice, or however many times, we don’t have to keep on having it, and it isn’t always wise to. We’re always evaluating whether or not it’s the right thing for us at a given time and in a given context, not just for first times, but every time, because it won’t always be the right thing and we won’t always have all of what we want and need for it to be right for us.

I’d say some things that are going on here give clear cues that sex between you two right now isn’t a great idea. I think both of you have some things to do on your own first before you can potentially get to a place where it might be a lot more sound and feel better, physically and emotionally, for both of you. Personally, I have a strong feeling that a sexual relationship just isn’t what either of you are really ready for with each other, and maybe with other partners too. But that’s ultimately something you’ll need to figure out for yourself to reach your own conclusions.

I think you should start with that sexual health exam, to either rule out that they’re about a physical issue or find out that they are, and get some treatment so you stop hurting so much with genital contact, alone and with partners. You can spend some more time with your own masturbation, and some more time exploring what feels good and doesn’t, and what feels like something at all and what doesn’t, and what really turns you on in your head and heart, not just your body. I think you should also assess this relationship on the whole. Someone you love who refuses to believe you love them, who is deeply insecure and impatient, who is passive-aggressive in his communication just might not be a good person to be close to, period—not just sexually.

I think he should educate himself more about sex, your anatomy and what reciprocity is really about (and I’ll leave some links on that at the bottom of this page, which I think can benefit you too). He can assess the reality of where his esteem is, as well as if he’s earnestly confident and secure enough in himself to be sexual and intimate with you or any other partner at this point in his life. He can check in with himself very honestly about why he so badly needs your body to do certain things, and if he feels like he can’t do any of that, he can at least acknowledge his own big barriers to a working sexual partnership right now and give himself more time, by himself, to grow as a person first. He can read up on and work toward better communication, especially in situations like sex where the emotional stakes are high.

I also think it would be a great idea for both of you to do a sexual inventory worksheet like this, answering very honestly, then sharing each of your answers together. Same goes with our sexual readiness checklist. Then you two can circle back to each other and start by communicating what you’ve figured out about yourselves and where you’re really at, or stay in communication while you do that, hopefully communicating in ways that are patient and productive.

Maybe one or both of you will just realize you moved faster into sex than was sound. That’s OK. All you’ve got to do is step it back and go a lot slower. If you both find that instead, after spending some time with those things above alone and talking about them together, you do feel ready, able, and wanting to be in sexual relationship to each other, and want to work on being a better sexual fit, I think it’d be helpful to start at the beginning again. Stick with things like kissing, cuddling, making out, just being naked together, shared massage (petting) and talking more deeply about your sexual wants, needs, and feelings, putting genital sex aside for a good while or limiting it to mutual masturbation where you’re being sexual together, but only touching your own genitals. If and when you both get to a place where all of those things feel better, physically and emotionally, alone and together, then you can probably move forward and have this all go very differently than it has.

If it turns out one or both of you comes to the conclusion that you are really not ready for this yet, I want you to be able to accept and honor that without feeling crummy about it, or thinking that it means something that it doesn’t, about either of you or your relationship. You are still very young. I know some people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s who feel like they’re just finally starting to come into their own sexually, and it’s quite common for young women to have troubles with reaching orgasm, especially with partners, having satisfying sex lives with partners, and really feeling in touch with their own sexuality. We don’t all have the same pace, the same opportunities, the same kinds of interpersonal relationships, or the same relationships with ourselves and our sexuality. There is no one right age or right pace, just what is right for each of us as individuals, which won’t be in sync all the time with every other person we can be involved with sexually or otherwise. We’re just not all sexually compatible and in the same space, at the same pace, at the same time for sex to be sound. I know very well how much of a bummer that can be when it happens, but it happens and it’s going to happen in life at one time or another, probably to everyone.

I’m going to leave you with a batch of links to look at and to share. I think the pieces on communication and reciprocity could be of particular benefit when you talk together. Whatever your outcome with this, I hope you’re both feeling a whole lot better soon, better able to identify what you each need, together and for yourselves, and can feel more comfortable in accepting, exploring, and honoring whatever that is.

Hey. I’m 14 and I’ve never fingered myself. I’ve done other things, but the thought of fingering myself just seems gross. A couple times, I’ve tried to, but then I get to thinking about how gross vaginas are, and I chicken out. I know this is irrational, but do you have any advice on getting over this? Thanks.

Heather Corinna replies:

Well, I don’t think vaginas or vulvas (or penises or anuses or mouths or ears or eyes or fingers or kidneys—any body parts) are gross. I think they’re really freaking cool and totally fascinating, whether I’m talking or thinking about my own, or all vulvas or vaginas. But you’re making it quite clear that you feel this way, and I wish I knew more about why.

No matter what, you don’t have to ever masturbate or touch yourself in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. Masturbation is about seeking our own pleasure and comfort with our own bodies, which means that if there’s anything that doesn’t feel pleasurable or comfortable, we don’t have to do it, just like we don’t have to do anything that doesn’t feel physically and emotionally good with a sexualpartner. There aren’t right or wrong ways to masturbate or have sex in this regard: just what feels right to the person or people involved. If you don’t want to put your fingers inside your vagina, you don’t have to, just like if you don’t want to touch your elbow you don’t have to, and you don’t have to stick your finger in your nose if you don’t want to do that.

For the record, inserting fingers into the vagina as masturbation all by itself isn’t that common, even though that’s usually not about a sense that the vagina is gross, but about that sensation not feeling like much to write home about all by itself, or your own fingers not offering the kind of angle or leverage for that to feel as good as it can. Likewise, “fingering” by a partner, when people choose to do that with partnered sex—when all that’s going on is fingers inside a vagina—often doesn’t feel like anything for anyone to go super-bananas about either, mostly just because the vagina, all by itself, isn’t as rich with sensory nerve endings as other areas of the genitals, like the clitoral glans. If you have the idea that if you or someone else doesn’t now or ever put fingers into your vagina that means you’re not fully sexual, know that just isn’t true. Our sexuality is a lot bigger than what we do or don’t do when it comes to sexual activities, and isn’t defined by what, if any, tab goes into what, if any, slot.

If you don’t want to touch any part of your vulva at all, you don’t have to do that, either, though that’s going to make things like using the toilet and dealing with menstrual periods more than a little tricky.

But feeling really grossed out by our own bodies is a very emotionally uncomfortable thing that doesn’t tend to make us feel good about ourselves. So, whatever you choose to do or avoid when it comes to masturbation for the time being, or even forever, I think that trying to work through the way you’re feeling around this is going to be of benefit to you. I don’t think you’re going to feel very good now or through life feeling fearful about or grossed out by your vagina.

Like I said, I don’t know your reasons for thinking and feeling the way you do. But you’re nothing close to the first person I’ve heard from who’s felt like this, and I’ve talked in depth with others feeling like you are, so I have a good grasp of some of the common roots of or reasons for feeling this way.

Does your vagina seem gross because it’s a canal into your body? If so, how about your mouth and throat? Your ears? Your rectum? These too are all canals into the body from the outside. If they’re not gross, or even one of them isn’t gross, then why would the vagina be gross? Or maybe you just have a hard time when it comes to thinking about you or anyone else’s insides? If either of these things feel like an issue, it might help to do some thinking about how your body is both insides and outsides; one is no more or less gross than the other, even though they tend to look different. Plus, without our insides, our outsides would look pretty darn weird—not at all what they look like now. Our insides have a lot to do with our outsides. If you’re just feeling funny about insides, period, have you yet taken a health or biology class at school? If you haven’t, I’d see if you can. Some impersonal, academic exposure might help you. You might still feel like bodies are weird (and they kind of are, but that doesn’t mean they’re gross), but you probably won’t single out your vagina so much afterward.

Does it seem gross because you don’t know or understand it? Not knowing the deal with a body part can feel pretty weird or scary sometimes. What’s mysterious can sometimes feel exciting, but other times can freak us right the heck out. So, if that’s part of this, how about finding out what’s in there and how it all works? You can read about that here or here. Your vagina doesn’t have to be a mystery to you.

Does your vagina seem gross because all genitals seem gross? If so, why? What makes genitals, when it comes to being gross or not, different from other body parts for you? Is it about them having fluids? If so, our eyes have fluids, our mouths and noses have fluids. In fact, we’re all mostly fluids; our bodies are made up of around 60 percent water. Is it because fluids can have something to do with reproduction? Or menstruation? Or because of messages you’ve gotten growing up about them being way different? With this one, I think it just pays to spend some time thinking about why genitals would be gross, but, for instance, squishy gray brain matter isn’t or the bottoms of our feet aren’t.

Does it seem gross because it doesn’t quite feel like yours yet? Even though, if you were born with a vagina, you’ve had one your whole life, during and around puberty, your vulva—much more so than your vagina—changes a lot. Those changes can happen in a way that feels fast enough that it can sometimes take a little while for the vulva or vagina you have now to really feel like yours—to feel like a part of you that you know and identify with. With something like that, it may just be that you need some more time to get used to these parts of your body, and that’s OK. You get to take all the time you need. As our bodies change, as they will throughout our lives, we’ll find that sometimes we need some time to adjust to them, time that can be minutes or time that can be years or even decades.

How about your feelings about your gender? Sometimes extreme discomfort with genitals is about gender identity. For instance, if someone very strongly feels like one gender when they have body parts that are “supposed” to be those of a different gender or sex, they can feel very uncomfortable. Sometimes even when someone feels like the gender that “matches” the body they have, if they have strong negative feelings about that gender, or things people say about that gender, or ways they feel pushed to be that gender, they can have these kinds of feelings. Some body parts, like our genitals, mean we can get gendered by others in ways we may not be comfortable with, or at a pace that doesn’t feel comfortable. That too can be a reason for feeling the way you’ve been feeling. Anything like this is something a qualified counselor can help you with.

Does it seem really gross, and have you been feeling severely uncomfortable, and not just with masturbation? Some folks have what’s called body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a term used to describe when someone has an extremely pervasive and negative body image when it comes to a perceived defect of their physical features or body parts—when something seems to them to be very, very wrong with one or more parts of their body, so wrong that they experience profound emotional distress about it. The Mayo Clinic sums BDD up as “imagined ugliness” and says, “When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures to try to ‘fix’ your perceived flaws, but never will be satisfied. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity.” If that sounds like you, your best bet, again, is to talk to a qualified counselor who can help.

Does your vulva or vagina seem gross because there are parts of your sexuality you’re not comfortable with? If so, this is something that you might just need to give yourself some more time with. Feeling at home in our sexuality is often a process, and in a lot of ways a lifelong process. Being all the way there at 14, especially in a world where there are so many messages that support feeling bad or freaked about your sexuality or your body, would be pretty unusual. It’s OK not to feel totally comfortable just yet, and it’s OK for getting there to be a process that takes time. You don’t need to try and push yourself to do anything that doesn’t feel right to you.

Or is this really about the idea that entry into vaginas is gross, rather than the idea that vaginas themselves are gross? Vaginal, anal, or oral entry can be loaded for plenty of people, with or without a partner, and it can also seem like a very different thing than external genital stimulation (probably in part because, in some ways, it really is different). For more on that, reading this might help: Let’s Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry.

Also, the idea of inserting something into our bodies can sometimes get paired in our heads with thoughts of other kinds of sex we might not want or want yet, feel comfortable with, or feel like have anything to do with our sexuality. Just know that if you do ever have the desire to explore your vaginal canal yourself, that doesn’t mean you have to want or choose to engage in any other kinds of sex with vaginal entry if that’s not something you want, now, soon, or later. Or maybe your sense is that the other things you do don’t “count” as masturbation, but putting fingers in your vagina would. If you’re externally rubbing your genitals for pleasure, that’s just as much masturbation as putting fingers inside your body would be.

Those are some of the most common things I tend to hear come up around this issue. One or all of them might be true for you, or maybe your feelings are about something else entirely. But if even after reading all of this, you’re not sure what’s going on, then I’d say the first thing you’ll want to do is to just think more about this over time so you can have a handle on the “why” of these feelings. It’s hard to move forward with something like this when we don’t have a sense of what we’re trying to move forward from. And sometimes just getting at the “why” gets us most of the way past something negative all by itself.

If you’ve got a library nearby, I have some books to suggest that I think will help you out. One I’d strongly suggest is Natalie Angier’s Woman: An Intimate Geography. I think that’d be a great one for you. It talks about your whole body and body parts with a whole bunch of cool facts you might not know and perspectives you may have never heard. But the best thing about that book, I think, especially for you, is that Angier basically totally geeks out about bodies in a really joyful way. She’s someone who clearly finds the vagina and other parts really interesting and neat, not at all gross, and her enthusiasm comes across in her writing: it’s quite contagious, and I think you could use those good vibes right now.

In fact, she says a few things about vaginas I think you could stand to hear right this very second:

The vagina, now there’s a Rorschach with legs. You can make of it practically anything you want, need or dread. A vagina in its most simple-minded rendering is an opening, an absence of form, an inert receptacle. It is a four- to five-inch-long tunnel that extends at a forty-five degree angle from the labia to the doughnut-shaped cervix. It is a pause between the declarative sentence of the outside world and the mutterings of the viscera. Built of skin, muscle and fibrous tissue, it is the most obliging of passageways, one that will stretch to accommodate travelers of any conceivable dimension, whether they are coming (penises, speculums) or going (infants)… The vagina is a balloon, a turtleneck sweater, a model for the universe itself, which, after all, is expanding in all directions even as we sit here and weep.

…The vagina is its own ecosystem, a land of unsung symbiosis and tart vigor. Sure, the traditional concept of the vagina is, “It’s a swamp down there!” but “tidal pool” would be more accurate: aqueous, stable, yet in perpetual flux.

See how someone like myself or Angier, thinking and viewing this body part in these kinds of ways, can pretty much only think, “Whoa, awesome!” or “Wow, that is cool!” instead of, “Eeeew, gross”—especially when all of that and more is part of your own body? I mean, seriously, how cool is it that that’s a part of you? If you ask me, very.

I’d also suggest checking out Nancy Redd’s Body Drama and Our Bodies, Ourselves. If you’ve never read it, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler is a great thing to read when it comes to feeling in good company with some of the feelings you’ve been having and getting some messages that help explore and counter feeling crummy about your vagina. If you like the way I’ve talked about this with you and what you’ve seen at Scarleteen, you might also find my book helpful. It has a whole chapter about body image, including with genitals.

One big thing that runs through all the possibilities I brought up in that list up there is that we really can get a lot of negative messages about vulvas and vaginas, some so sneaky we don’t even realize that we’ve gotten them and internalized them. If you can figure out where you might have gotten or might still be getting messages that make you feel gross about your body, one big helpful thing you can do is to learn to change the channel. In other words, you’ve had the negative, so you switch to some more positive messages, like I’ve been talking about here and like the books I’ve suggested. Doing that can also make it a lot easier to just tune our or turn off the negative messages, and when we hear them, even just inside our own heads, they tend to sound a lot more silly and a lot less powerful.

I am 25. I am a virgin. I went on this date with this guy. We were trying to have sex. He didn’t put his penis inside of me. I was in pain. I panicked. I told him , I am not ready. I don’t know him very well. I did not want to sleep with him. I was freaked out. He told me, you are 25. You should be ready. My friend told me to purchase a vibrator that will help me be more comfortable with sex. Do you think I need more foreplay? Is there something wrong with me? Is there a way I can make the experience better for me?

Heather Corinna replies:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. But, boy howdy, does it sound like plenty was wrong with this situation.

You were also clear that you didn’t feel ready to have sex with this person once it was obvious to you that you felt that way.

The right response to that from him should’ve been something like, “Oh, okay, let’s stop any of this, then. Do you still want to hang out some more tonight, or would you like me to go and give you some space? Are you okay? Is there anything I can get for you or do for you if you’re not?”

NOT, “You are 25, you should be ready.”UGH.

If anything, that response makes clear THAT guy probably isn’t ready to be sexual with other people, because that’s just not how we respond to another person in this situation when we’re actually respecting and regarding them as a person. It’s not like people come with some kind of timer that goes DING! at or by a certain age and then they’re done when it comes to being ready for — or interested in — sex with any given person at any given time. You’re a person, not a roast in the oven, for crying out loud.

I suspect that what will make any sexual experiences better for you are what tend to make them good for pretty much everyone.

For one, they need to be truly wanted. When we don’t want to engage in any kind of sex, or we did, but then we don’t anymore, it’s never going to be any good for anyone. You can be sure that if this guy had stopped wanting sex with you, he’d probably have stopped and opted out of continuing with it, too.

We do also need to feel ready, on our own terms, not just if and when someone else wants us to be ready, or thinks we should be, because they want sex from us.

What feeling or being ready means to you may not be the same thing as what it means to other people, but certainly, feeling like you don’t know someone well enough to be having sex with them is one of those things where no one is going to feel ready. While everyone may not have the same timetable with that, or the same timetable with one potential partner versus another, we’re all going to have some measure of when we feel comfortable enough with someone — or don’t — to be sexual with them.

Another one that’s pretty universal when it comes to what makes sexual experiences good, or comfortable for people is not sleeping with people who are being total jerks. I don’t really know who is ready to be sexual with people who don’t treat them like human beings in the most basic ways, but if and when we are ready for that, we probably have some big issues to work out, issues we’re not likely helped by trying to work out through sex with people who don’t treat us with basic care and kindness.

Clearly, this guy wouldn’t qualify. This guy, from the sounds of things, wasn’t treating you with basic respect and care. It sounds pretty clearly like what he was invested in was having sex, not in the person he wanted to have sex with. To be healthy, sound sexual partners for anyone, we’ve got to be invested in, and mindful about, both.

You asked if you needed more foreplay or, what I just call other kinds of sex. (After all, things like making out, oral sex or manual sex, when we’re all engaging in them to explore and express our sexual feelings or desires, are kinds of sex just like intercourse is a kind of sex.) For sure, before intercourse, many, if not most, people who are receptive partners will tend to want or even need other kinds of sex first before intercourse feels good, or to get more aroused. While I don’t think that would have made this situation much better, because any kind of sex with someone saying what this guy said to you sounds like it’d be a drag, on the whole, that certainly tends to work much better for most people than rushing into sex with any kind of entry. Too, what tends to work best for most people, especially people brand new to any kind of sex with a partner, is gradually exploring sexual activities together, over time, and spending a lot of time with kinds of sex other than intercourse first. As in, not minutes or hours, but weeks or months. Not all on the day of a first date, but as you more gradually get to know someone.

I want to make sure that you know that there’s no one age where everyone is “ready” to have sex with someone else. Not 25, not 18, not 70. We’re all much too different for that, and the range of situations and partnerships where we can or do engage in sex are all way too different for that. And, even if we’re ready, for example, to have sex, of any kind, with one person we’re with when we’re 19, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be ready to have sex with someone different, or even that same person, when we’re 30.

Readiness for sex with someone isn’t a one-time thing, something where once we’re ready once, we’re ever-ready. Readiness for sex with someone is situational, and something we establish every single time we do or might engage in sex with another person, and where we won’t always have the same feelings or answer. It’s also not just based on us: it’s also about the other person, who they are, how we feel about them and with them, what we do or don’t want with them at a given time, a whole big and unique picture, every single time we might engage in any kind of sex.

Think about it like this: we’re born ready to eat, right? Of course, we’re not ready for solid foods until a given time, because we need teeth for that. But even once we are, that still doesn’t mean that we all want or like the same kinds of foods, that the same kinds of foods all sit the same with all of us, nor that we’re all always hungry just because we’re “ready” to eat. Sex with someone — and even just with ourselves, alone — is a lot like that. The process of puberty (which often lasts into the 20s), makes our bodies “ready” for sex in the most rudimentary ways. But just like having teeth to eat solid foods doesn’t mean we’re always hungry, or always want a given food at a given time, having gone through puberty doesn’t make us always ready for sex.

Sometimes “ready” as a framework can also trip us up if we forget that just being “ready,” in a general way, doesn’t mean that every sexual situation or partner will be right for us. Being ready in a general way, doesn’t mean we want to pursue every possible sexual opportunity, either. Most people, if not all people, have at least some basis of selection, if not a pretty involved, specific basis, when it comes to if they engage in sex with someone else, when, and with whom. I feel very safe saying absolutely none of us is “ready” for sex with absolutely anyone at any time.

Really, it looks to me like you made a good decision here telling this guy to back off and opting out. Good call, you. He just doesn’t sound like someone anyone is likely to have a positive sexual experience with. If you didn’t want to be engaging in sex with him, if you didn’t feel ready, feeling freaked out makes sense. After all, we will tend to feel that way when any situation in life is wrong for us. I don’t see any reason to second-guess your feelings and reactions here: they seem like they were dead-on to me.

I’d suggest that in thinking about sexual interactions in the future, you take some time to try and identify what you want and to first explore and consider your sexuality yourself. You can’t know all of that for sure, in the abstract, obviously, but you really can figure out quite a lot all by yourself, just by consulting your heart, your head, and some sex and sexuality information.

Masturbation certainly can be part of that process, and most often is for most people before they ever engage in sex with a partner, but how you choose to explore that is up to you. If you want to experiment with a vibrator, by all means, do, but that certainly isn’t required if that doesn’t appeal to you. A vibrator also isn’t some magical tool that can make someone feel ready for sex with anyone else at any time. It’s just a tool you can use to explore pleasure on your own or, later on, if and when you find a partner, with a partner. Masturbation can also help you figure out what you do and don’t like on your own, give you a place to explore sexual feelings and fantasies, and give you a place to become more comfortable with your own body and sexuality, but no matter how we do it, all by itself it’s not going to make us comfortable with every possible sexual situation. That’s okay, since there’s no one for whom every possible sexual situation is a right one for them.

But our sexuality, and whatever sexual activities we choose to engage in, isn’t just about the physical. Nor is it just about what we do or don’t find pleasurable, or about feeling more comfortable engaging in sex. It’s a much bigger picture than that.

I think it might also be helpful to also have a big think about what you want and need in a possible sexual partner. Not what they want from you, but what you’re looking for, want and need from and with them.

For instance, with this guy, you clearly felt you didn’t know him well enough. How long do you feel like you need to get to know someone first, per what feels like it’d be best for you? What does an ideal getting-to-know-them scenario look like in your mind? What might the two of you do in time you spend together? What things would you like to first talk about and know about them? Does it mean meeting some of their friends first? Family? Them meeting yours?

How about talking about the fact that you aren’t very sexually experienced? Why not find out through talking to someone how they might approach that before becoming sexual, and make it a criteria to only consider moving forward into any kind of sex with someone who isn’t a total tool about it, or better still, who sounds like, in those conversations, they’ll work with that fantastically, with the kind of pace that you feel best about, and whatever sensitivity you want and need?

Might any kind of sex that feels right for you, that isn’t scary, and doesn’t make you feel panicked, involve some kind of commitment? Some people, or some people sometimes, are comfortable with sex outside an ongoing or committed relationship. Other people, or other people sometimes, aren’t. Think about you and what you know about who you are: what sounds like what you’re most comfortable with now and in the near future?

These aren’t all of the issues and questions to think about, but based on what you’ve posted here, I think they might be good starting points.

I’m going to give you a few links to click and read through which I think will help you more to consider what you do and don’t want right now, and feel ready for, in the most general way, but which can also help you evaluate specific potentially sexual situations or partners to help you figure out what’s right for you.

I think if you take some time to do that — and no matter what this guy said, or your friend says — there really is no rush, you get however much time you want and need before being sexual with someone else, at any age — and try and lead with what you think and feel is right for you, with what seems most in alignment with what you want and need, you’ll more easily avoid hellacious sexual situations like this one, and be more likely to find and co-create sexual experiences, interactions or relationships that are positive and that do feel good, physically and emotionally.

The piece about consent I’ve included can give you an idea of how partners should be addressing you when it comes to communicating about sex and consent (hint: sop not like this guy did). The last link on that list is to give you some helps it sounds like you might need in slowing things down with a potential partner who wants to speed up much faster than your pace.

I don’t mean to ask a silly question, but is there anything that makes being female good in terms of sex? It seems to me men have all the biological luck – they are aroused more easily, they orgasm more frequently, they can orgasm regularly from both oral/manipulative sex and intercourse, their is more square inches of erectile tissue to play around with, etc. I often listen to my guy friends talk, and lately it has been making me feel very inferior. Is there anything going for us?

Heather Corinna replies:

(I’m going to assume that when you say female, you mean person-with-vulva, since it sounds like when you talk about men, you mean people-with-penises. If I went the wrong way with those assumptions, let me know and I’ll have a do-over with this one.)

I think it’s not a great idea to try and do this kind of comparison between men and women, or people with one kind of genitals and people with another. Bodies are diverse, sexualities are diverse, and people’s experiences with sex and sexuality are diverse. Some of that diversity can be about gender or what kind of bodies or body parts people have, but those things are only a couple of pieces of a very large pie. I ordered a pizza once that, when it arrived, was not only twice the size I had ordered, and cut into more pieces than I could make heads or tails of, but it also looked like the person who cut it had not exactly aced geometry. I think that pizza is a lot like our sexualities tend to be: a pie that turns out to be a lot bigger than we expected, and looks different than we expected, including a lot of pieces where the form is often largely indiscernible and rarely tidy or systematic.

Even when we just stick to how things can vary within differences in gender or differences in body parts, there is so much variation. Not everyone with a penis does find they get and feel aroused more easily than everyone without one, reaches orgasm more frequently, or can orgasm regularly — or at all — from receptive oral sex or intercourse. (And having a penis doesn’t mean having more erectile tissue than someone without one, but I’ll get to that in a bit.) Not everyone with a clitoris has a clitoris that works exactly the same way or feels exactly the same. Nor does simply having a vulva mean that all people with one have the same sexual responses, desires and experiences. Same goes for people with penises.

Sex and sexuality is about so, so much more than body parts and friction, and what kind of body or combination of X’s or Y’s people have tells us, so so very little about any of this. The part of me that wants a vacation, to be able to solve people’s issues and problems lickety-split with one-size-fits-all-advice, or for fewer people to yell at me when I won’t agree things are more complicated than that would love it, too, if it was as simple as just those things. But another part of me, a much bigger part, thinks the fact that it’s not that simple is a big win for having work which will always be challenging and interesting and make me stretch my mind and my assumptions a lot AND when it comes to having life itself and all the people in it be really interesting and enriching. I sure as heck know that sex and sexuality, including my own, would be an experience that got old and hollow mighty fast if it was all just that simple.

Because of all of that variance and more, I can’t give you the kind of answer I think you’re looking for. If all men were the same and all women were the same, then I kind of could. Or, if people with X set of body parts all had bodies or those parts which worked and felt identically and all had the same or very similar experiences of sex and sexuality and people with Y set of of body parts all had bodies or those parts which worked and felt identically and all had the same or very similar experiences of sex and sexuality, then I might be able to. But since none of those things are even so, I just can’t.

Let’s talk erectile tissue. For starters, genitals aren’t the only place we can have that kind of tissue, no matter our gender or embodiment. There is erectile tissue in the penis, and also in the clitoris (and I’m talking about the whole of the clitoris, not just the external glans, and the whole clitoral structure is usually about the same size as a penis, leaving room for the fact that both penis and clitoral size vary). We have erectile tissue as part of our noses, ears, and our urethral and perineal sponges. We’ve all got that kind of tissue, usually in pretty equally-distributed portions. But erectile tissue also only does so much. Just having that tissue or having it become erect doesn’t mean things feel good. Sure, a penis or clitoris becoming erect can feel seriously neat, but it can also feel annoying, painful, or even like “Meh, whatever. Bored now.” Plus, the fact that we have that tissue and it becomes erect is usually a response to already feeling good and the things the body does to make erection happen, which is really why erect tissue can feel good or like anything at all. And let’s also bear in mind that not everyone can always or even ever experience genital erections. Not all men or women have bodies that can function that way, or always will, and that doesn’t mean they can’t still enjoy sex and sexuality. Erection isn’t a requirement for sexual enjoyment. It’s just something which may or may not play a part in it: this is another of those small pieces of a much bigger pie.

It might also help to know that when people do studies about sexual satisfaction, things like reaching orgasm easily, or getting off a certain way aren’t usually what people tend to rank as what’s tops on their list of what makes sex great, and that includes people with penises. You can have a look at one of those studies yourself, if you like. This one was done by the Kinsey Institute this year, about long-time heterosexual couples, and it revealed findings like this:

What predicted overall [sexual] satisfaction? For women, key factors were relationship duration and their own good sexual functioning. But for men, there seemed to be a larger variety of contributors to happiness: longer relationships, good physical health (healthy men were 67% more likely to report being happy with their relationships than men in poor health), good sexual functioning and their [partner‘s] sexual satisfaction: a man’s happiness rose 17% with each additional point he rated the importance of his partner’s orgasm.

So, let’s figure, as is probably true, that you do have just as much erectile tissue as your buddies. Then let’s say you can reach orgasm easily from oral sex and intercourse, and that you also got aroused very easily and reached orgasm as often as they (say they) do. What if you did have all that, but still didn’t find all of that did much for you? What about times when you didn’t want to reach orgasm quickly, but would prefer to savor everything that leads up to orgasm for as long as possible? Or times you wanted to enjoy taking time to become more and more aroused, and felt disappointed when you instead got super-hot really fast? What if a greater quantity of orgasm didn’t mean a greater quality?

If any of that seems unusual, know that there are folks who have been or are in those boats (and those folks come in all genders, not just one), and who don’t feel “biologically fortunate,” to have their bodies respond otherwise sometimes, or find that those things don’t result in super-fantastico sexual bliss, or even in their most basic sexual satisfaction. What makes sex good for people just usually has very little to do with what genitals someone has.

I usually put links into a column last, but I think some of the issue here is perhaps not having enough education about sex, anatomy, the diversity of what people enjoy and the kinds of things that do tend to contribute most to sexual satisfaction. So, I’m flopping some of that information here for you now.

I put a few of the polls we’ve done into that list for you. I think you might find some of the answers surprising, since they’re at odds with what some of your assumptions are. Consider those poll links other peer conversations you can hear besides just what the guy friends you know are saying, too. It’s easy for people to figure that what a given peer group says or experiences is somehow broadly representative of all people or groups, even though it usually isn’t. The polls we do here can come in mighty handy for getting a far more diverse view.

If you want a couple things to take away from all this that are about some ways men and women, as broad groups, often (not always, but often) tend to be sexually different, I’ve got three I think matter, are factual, and are worth thinking about:1. People raised as men usually tend to masturbate more than people raised as women, to do so more often and more consistently from childhood on, and to feel more comfortable and relaxed about masturbation than women.2. People raised as men, compared to those raised as women, more frequently actively seek out the kinds of sex that they want and feel good to them, more frequently decline whatever isn’t what they really want, and are typically more assertive with sexual partners about what they want and like.3. Men, especially in the company of other men, generally are given a lot of room to talk about how awesome sex and their sexual experiences are, but very little to talk about things that aren’t working for them, ways they don’t feel satisfied (especially if that’s about not liking or enjoying kinds of sex men are “supposed to” or if why they aren’t satisfied isn’t something they can’t pin on a partner), or things they desire, enjoy or experience that aren’t considered “manly.”

Those first two things are things we know from study and working in sexuality tend to make a really big difference when it comes to people having satisfying sexual experiences, alone or with partners. For instance, we know that women often have a much easier time reaching orgasm alone, through masturbation, than with partners, and that when women do dedicate real time and energy to masturbation for themselves, by themselves, then bring that comfort and communication about what they know they want and enjoy to partners, the kind of divide you’re seeing is a LOT smaller. The fact that far more men do both of those things than women is the most likely reason why men, on the whole, can tend to reach orgasm a bit more easily and with greater frequency with partners.

Things like that are are social, not biological, so they aren’t things that you don’t have access to. In other words, you don’t need a different body than you have to have similar experiences. You may just need to switch up some of your behavior and your mindset about sex, sexuality, sexual partnership and your body.

For sure, one or both of those things might be a bit more challenging for you than for your guy friends. But they are totally doable for a lot of women in the world. They are also very likely to be two things that play a part in the difference between how your guy friends are feeling about sex and sexuality and how you are. So, if you want, you can even up something you’re seeing as “the score” by working on those two things, spending more time exploring your own body and what feels good all by yourself, then taking what you experience and learn from that on the road with any sexual partners (if and when you decide you want a partner, and that someone is likely to be the kind of partner you want), communicating what you want and enjoy to them. Doing all that makes it far more likely they will have some sort of clue about what to do with you and what you’ll enjoy, make you more likely to enjoy sex, and carries an extra bonus of having sex be more likely to be most enjoyable for your partner, too. When everyone involved in sex is really connecting and enjoying themselves mutually, it’s pretty hard for sex to feel anything but good.

As someone who has worked in sexuality for a substantial amount of time now and with large, diverse groups of people, one of the things I know is absolutely true is that there is no one gender of people who unilaterally has better experiences with sex or more sexual pleasure than another. I also know, with absolute certainty, that the idea that men have it made when it comes to sex and their sexual lives, or that all or most men are always or even often having the best sexual time ever isn’t true. Those links up there will probably help you start to see that, too, but so might recognizing that how your guy friends are talking about sex and their bodies not only can’t represent all men, what they’re saying — or how you’re hearing what they’re saying — probably isn’t as complete or true as it might seem.

There’s a lot we could talk about with that, so much that it’s really the stuff of books rather than a single column. Like I said, many men are under a lot of pressure, especially from other men, and especially when they’re younger, to be dishonest about sex. A lot of guys’ and peer groups of guys’ notions of masculinity are very tied up with a very limited range of what is and isn’t acceptable with men’s sexual desires and experiences. I’d also add that the grading curve often set by most cultures to evaluate what male sexual enjoyment is or should be is usually set within a very limited sphere. In other words, what “male enjoyment” of sex is can often be defined in such a limited way — one far more limited than what it can be — that it can be easier for men to say and feel sex is totally awesome because the criteria they’re given for good sex is so skimpy.

We see that with how the male sexual body is often defined: usually as just penis, and maybe testes, if they’re lucky. We see that around how often just “getting sex” or ejaculating are set as all men want or need to feel sexually satisfied, two common goalposts which you can probably see would make sex pretty shallow or stale pretty quickly.

Neither of those kinds of things are limited to men, of course. Women are often given way more permission to talk about what isn’t satisfying about sex than what is, especially among other women. And women’s sexual bodies are often reduced to nothing but breasts and orifices. The point is that if you have the idea that there’s this no-holds-barred world for men out there when it comes to sex, I’d disagree, and if you think men aren’t limited in their own ways, or in ways similar to how women are, this is another way to see that you and your guy friends probably have more in common than any of you recognize or acknowledge.

When and if your guy friends are talking about sex and their sexual bodies as something always utterly awesome for them, know that that often probably isn’t entirely true. Know what’s more likely is that, as is the case for most people, sex for them probably is not always awesome nor always awful. Know that there’s probably just as much they’re not saying as what they are, and that some, if not all, of them in these conversations probably are feeling pretty inferior or crummy themselves. That’s not good news for them or anyone, obviously, that sucks. But if you’re feeling alone in your feelings, I think it’s important to know you’re probably not alone in them, even in that group.

No need not to be real about something, though: a lot of the way sexual satisfaction is framed and presented in the world has been centered around male sexuality and men (something that happened eons before you or your friends were even born) and still is in a whole lot of ways, even though that hardly means all men are served well by that imbalance. If and when something that’s about more than one gender or kind of body is conceptualized and presented as being mostly or only just about one, or only kind of seen through that one lens, that is going to be a problem, and it is a problem that remains a problem, even though, over time, the world has been improving in this regard. Just slowly.

Leonore Tiefer is someone who I think talks about this fantastically when she addresses the trouble in the medical framing of “female sexual dysfunction,” often a precarious and deeply flawed framework. One other thing we know from the study of sexuality is that women who feel dissatisfied with sex with partners don’t usually have anything wrong with them physically or emotionally, nor are they just lacking in body parts. Rather, what’s most typical is that women just aren’t exploring what they really want, sharing whatever that is with partners assertively, or even giving their partners the chance — and so many of them want that chance — to know what they want and what they like. In other words, that problem is far more often a relationship problem than a body problem, one that can usually be remedied, and one that, when women with partners do remedy, tends to result in women AND their partners both enjoying themselves a whole lot more. I also think it’s safe to say that a lot of women are also still struggling to learn how to even define and discover their own sexuality in a way that’s not directly linked to male bodies or a dude-centric framing of sex.

If the way you or anyone else is framing is centered only or mostly around those body parts you don’t have, it can certainly seem or feel like you can’t compete. The good news is that no one needs to, and it’s not that hard not to in the places that matter and which you can control: your own mind and your own interpersonal relationships.

You don’t need a different body, nor do you need to try and pit your body and anyone else’s into any kind of competition, or take part in that if someone else is framing things that way. You get to frame your sexuality and sex life around you: around your life, your desires, your embodiment.

All of us have a lot of things going for us when it comes to sex and sexuality. What makes sex and sexuality comfortable, enjoyable or fulfilling for people usually has some common threads (and it’s not about body parts), but those things remain very highly individual and situational. Sex is not anything close to being just about bodies or body parts. For sure, part of our experience with sex is often, if not usually, physical, but the physical is not something we can separate from everything else that drives, influences and otherwise plays a part in our sexualities and sexual experiences: the emotional, the psychological, the intellectual, the spiritual, the interpersonal; our whole life histories and specifically sexual histories, our ethics and values and belief systems and so much more.

Sex is a lot like art: it’s a means of self-expression, whether you share it or not. A sexuality someone really, really enjoys tends to be a highly original, thoughtfully-crafted piece of work, not a poster there are a million copies of or something that’s clearly copying or reacting to another artist.

One of the biggest parts of cultivating and creating a sexuality and sexual life that’s what we really, really like and value tends to involve finding out what our sexuality is past the static of what everyone else’s is like, or appears to be like. It also involves learning to move past generalizations, oversimplifications and surface presentations of sex, especially if, in our sex lives, we’re going to be connecting with other people sexually as partners, where those ways of thinking can cheat more than just us. That’s not something that usually happens overnight, it’s often a long-term unlearning process. But it’s a really important one. It’s important with any partners you may have so that you don’t limit your shared experiences or their own sexuality. And it’s important for you so that you don’t limit your own.

No one is inferior or superior here. No one needs to be: one person with one kind of body enjoying sex doesn’t mean another person without that kind of body can’t, won’t or doesn’t, even if there’s something one of those people has going on that the other does not. Everyone has a ton of things going for them, physically and otherwise, because sex — when we do it right — is about who we are, not who we’re not.

One last thing? If the way your guy friends are talking is still making you feel inferior, try a bigger check-in. What’s that all about? Is it about the way that they’re talking? Do you feel like you’re in a locker room you don’t want to be in, like they’re amping things up because you’re there (or the other guys are), like they’re being insensitive or even being really inappropriate in your company? You didn’t fill me in on what they’re saying, how they’re saying it and in what context. So, I can’t know if the way they are talking about their bodies and sex lives is sexist or excludes you or if there’s a lot of posturing. Obviously, any or all of those things could leave you feeling cruddy, and that’d be about their talk, not your embodiment. But if you keep feeling uncomfortable in those conversations, do yourself a favor and ask for some limits with them. You get to have boundaries with friends around sex, and that includes sexual conversations.

If you don’t feel like you can speak up and redirect those conversations, or ask for some consideration in them, then I think you might want to figure that maybe you and these friends shouldn’t be talking about sex together. It’s great for people to talk about sex instead of keeping silent, but, as you already know, it’s also a sensitive, vulnerable issue, and one which requires consideration and maturity to talk about in a way that can leave everyone feeling okay. (And I know, you’re just starting your twenties, so they probably are, too, but just because people are officially adults of any age doesn’t mean they have all that together.) If you don’t feel like these friends have that capacity, that the dynamics of the group don’t support that, or you feel like maybe you need to come into your own with your own sexuality first before you feel comfortable in these kinds of discussions, then you just may want to opt out of these conversations, period. These are apparently your friends, and it should never be that big of a deal for friends to save a conversation about something they want to have for a time when someone who doesn’t want to take part is not around.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/08/17/real-male-bodies-female-bodies-there/feed/0What Is Healthy Sexual Development?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/06/09/what-healthy-sexual-development/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-healthy-sexual-development
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/06/09/what-healthy-sexual-development/#commentsThu, 09 Jun 2011 21:38:36 +0000Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy. However, it's a phrase and concept that's bandied about a lot, yet is rarely explained. A group of Australian researchers finally defined it clearly and holistically.

]]>Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy.

This is a subject that’s talked about all the time, however, when it is, there’s often little to no clear definition about what healthy sexual development is. Many easy assumptions get made, and ideas about what’s healthy for all people are often based in or around personal agendas, ideas and personal experiences of sexuality, rather than being based in broader viewpoints, truly informed and comprehensive ideas about all that human sexuality and development involves and real awareness of possible personal or cultural bias.

We think this question is very, very tricky and that the answers aren’t at all obvious or easy: sexuality is incredibly complex, especially given its incredible diversity, not just among a global population, but even within any one person’s lifetime. Our cultures also are often sexually unhealthy in many ways, and so ideas about healthy sexual development, deeply influenced by culture, are often flawed, incomplete or limited, and can sometimes present things as healthy which truly are not, but are so pervasive or so much a part of cultural frameworks that people assume they are or must be. So, what healthy sexual development is is hardly a simple question, nor a question we can answer casually or without a whole lot of deep thought and consideration, both ideally coming from multiple perspectives and kinds of expertise.

At a recent conference I was part of in London, Alan McKee presented a talk which included a piece published in the International Journal of Sexual Health (2010, 22(1), Healthy sexual development: a multidisciplinary framework for research, Alan McKee, Kath Albury, Michael Dunne, Sue Grieshaber, John Hartley, Catharine Lumby and Ben Mathews). As someone who’s worked for many years in sexuality and sex education, and who worked in early child development for several years before that, I’ve heard “healthy sexual development” tossed around a lot, but have often felt dissatisfied with the way it was undefined or some of the things it has implied when people have used it. Often, critical pieces seem to be missing, personal agendas seem to be central and unrecognized, or the way it’s defined hasn’t been broadly inclusive, holistic or thoughtful.

What McKee and his colleagues determined to be the core parts of healthy sexual development had me jumping up and down in my seat with joy (literally: I may have disturbed my fellow attendees with my bouncing). It summed up the things we try to support, encourage and inform our users with and keep core at Scarleteen so well, and so much of what I think — after many years of thinking hard about and working with these issues, and being fully and broadly immersed in them with a very diverse population — truly is central to healthy sexual development.

Their work also makes it wonderfully clear that sex education and supporting healthy sexual development isn’t just something that can or does happen in what we call sex education, but can — and should! — be present in and come from many different kinds of education, information and support. Not only do I think this list includes the key issues for the development of healthy sexuality for individuals, I think it’s also an excellent framework for working towards cultures which are sexually healthier than most are and have been.

I’m delighted to have permission to excerpt and reprint this framework here. I believe the domains listed are benchmarks everyone can use whether we’re providing sex education, parenting or mentoring, evaluating the health of our sexual interactions or relationships with others, or working on our own personal growth and well-being when it comes to our sexuality. I’ve included alternate ways of understanding the key points and also some links to get started with on our site in exploring ways of supporting these aspects of healthy sexuality at the end.

From the paper: “A consultative group was gathered consisting of seven Australian experts across a number of disciplines relating to children, development and sexuality. The group included a psychologist specialising in preventing child sexual abuse; an early childhood expert; a legal expert in children’s rights; a specialist in sexuality education; experts on sexual socialisation; and on the media’s impact on children’s development. The group commissioned literature reviews of the research on children’s sexuality across their disciplines; and worked together to develop a consensual definition of healthy sexual development that drew on the insights of their various disciplines.”

“One key point emerged early in the discussions: this would be a holistic approach to healthy sexual development. In much of the literature in this area the sole concern is the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of child sexual abuse (see for example Haugaard & Emery, 1989; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Ryan, 2000). The group agreed that preventing unwanted sexual encounters is a key element of healthy sexual element – but it is far from being sufficient for an understanding of the important elements in that development. There is more to healthy sexual development than simply preventing abuse. Important positive skills and understandings must be developed. We identified fifteen key domains which provide a multidisciplinary framework for understanding healthy sexual development:

i. Freedom from unwanted activity.

Healthy sexual development takes place in a context in which children are protected from unwanted sexual activity (Haugaard & Emery, 1989; Sanderson, 2004). This is a fundamental point. Its complexity must also be acknowledged. Hence the second point is:

Healthy sexuality is not coercive (Wardle, 1998; Ryan, 2000; Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002; FPQ, 2006). And so children need to understand the nature and complexity of consent – not just their own, but also other people’s – in sexuality. They need to learn about the ethics of human relationships, and how to treat other people ethically.

In other words: Healthy sexual activity is only activity that is truly wanted by anyone and everyone directly involved in it. Consenting and acquiring consent, and the freedom to withhold or withdraw consent, always; knowing what consent really means and involves for everyone are key to healthy sexual development and to a healthy sexuality and sex life.

iii. Education about biological aspects of sexual practice

In healthy sexual development, children are provided with accurate information about how their bodies work. Research has shown that ‘[i]n the absence of adequate and systematic sex education, children invent their own explanations for biological and sexual processes often in the form of mythologies’ (Goldman & Goldman, 1982, p. 392).

In other words: This means things like accurate words for body parts, science and fact-based explanations of how bodies can or do function not just around sexual reproduction, but also around sex itself and the debunking of mythologies about bodies, sexuality and reproduction.

iv. An understanding of safety.

In healthy sexual development, children learn what is safe sexual practice. This is meant in the widest possible sense, including physical safety, safety from sexually transmitted diseases (Allen, 2005, p. 2), and safety to experiment.

In other words: It’s vital to know about safer sex, preventing or reducing the risk of injury, illness and other harm, and how to explore sex and sexuality in ways which are known and shown as most likely to be physically and emotionally safe.

v. Relationship skills.

In healthy sexual development, children learn relationship skills more generally. This includes, but is not limited to, communication and assertiveness skills. Children learn to ask for what they want assertively in relationships generally. At an appropriate point this also includes sexual relationships (Impett et al, 2006).

In other words: Part of everyone’s sexuality involves interpersonal relationships, whether that’s about sexual relationships expressly, or any relationship in which someone’s sexuality may be addressed. Learning what is and is not healthy in all relationships — including family relationships, friendships, interactions with healthcare providers or people outside those spheres — is a big part of learning what is healthy in sexual relationships.

vi. Agency.

Emerging from the previous point, in healthy sexual development children learn that they are in control of their own sexuality, and in control of who can take sexual pleasure from their bodies. They are confident in resisting peer pressure. They understand their rights. They learn to take responsibility for making their own decisions (SIECUS, 1995).

In other words: Sexual agency is about having and being afforded ownership of one’s body and sexuality, not being externally controlled by others. This includes freedom from unwanted sexual activity and sexual coercion. Agency also means that we’re the owners of our own actions and choices. With real agency, we are both held accountable and responsible for them and are allowed the liberty of having ownership for the choices we make.

vii. Lifelong learning.

Every researcher who has studied the healthy sexual development of children insists that children are naturally ‘curious’ about their bodies and about sex (Sanderson, 2004: 62). Studies over many decades have shown that they explore their bodies – including touching and sometimes masturbating their genitals – from birth (Levy, 1928; Ryan, 2000; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b); they ask questions about sex at the same time as they begin to ask questions about other aspects of society (Hattendorf, 1932; Larsson & Svedin, 2002); and they play ‘sex games’ like doctors and nurses with other children from an early age (Isaacs, 1933; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b; Sandnabba et al, 2003). Research has shown that this behaviour is not only normal, it is healthy and has no harmful effect on later sexual development (Kilpatrick, 1992; Greenwald & Leitenberg, 1989; Leitenberg et al, 1989; Okami et al, 1998; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b). Similarly, learning about sexuality does not stop at the point where (or if) sexual intercourse begins. Adults continue to learn about their sexuality throughout their lives, improving their knowledge of and attitudes towards their sex lives.

In other words: Being curious about sexuality and wanting to explore it needs to be understood and presented as healthy and acceptable. Exploring sexuality in healthy ways is also learning about sexuality, and that learning, and feeling open to always learn more, is part of our sexual well-being throughout all of life.

viii. Resilience.

There is a necessary element of risk in all learning. This is also true of sexual learning (Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002, p. 3). In healthy development, children develop agency in order to facilitate resilience, so that bad sexual experiences are opportunities for learning rather than being destructive.

In other words: Sometimes sex can suck, doesn’t meet our expectations or things happen to us or by us sexually which are painful or traumatic. In order to be as healthy as we can, we need resilience so that we can deal with and/or heal from disappointment, embarrassment, harm or trauma, rather than being unable to recover or move forward in our lives and sexualities.

ix. Open communication.

Healthy sexual development requires open communication between adults and children, in both directions. As noted above, this means that children are provided with age-appropriate information about sex (SIECUS, 1995), and particularly that they are given honest answers to any questions they may ask (Chrisman & Couchenor, 2002). There is absolute agreement in the literature that this is important for preventing sexual abuse (Krafchick & Biringen, 2002, p. 59; Sanderson, 2004, p. 55), development of a healthy attitude towards their own bodies and sexuality (Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002, p. 14; Impett et al, 2005), and preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs when they do become sexually active(Lindberg et al, 2008). On the other hand, in healthy situations, children feel comfortable in coming to adults with problems, concerns or issues they may have about their bodies or what is happening to them.

In other words: Healthy sexuality doesn’t and can’t often happen in a culture or environment of silence. Talking about sex and sexuality openly and honestly is part of developing healthy sexuality and healthy sexual development, both with peers and and with parents, guardians and other adults, and also part of reducing the risk of sexual harms or negative outcomes.

x. Sexual development should not be ‘aggressive, coercive or joyless’

This is a key distinction between healthy and unhealthy sexual development. Healthy sexual development is ‘fun’, playful and lighthearted (Okami et al, 1998, p. 364). Unhealthy sexual development is aggressive, coercive or joyless (Sanderson, 2004: 79).

In other words: It’s not healthy for anyone to be pushed into or away from sexual development: both should happen at a pace that’s right for each individual. As well, ideally sexual development is something that others support as being okay, something people experiencing it can feel relaxed about and even have fun with and enjoy.

xi. Self-acceptance.

In healthy sexual development children are supported in developing a positive attitude towards their own sexual identity(Impett et al, 2006); and a ‘positive body self concept’ (Okami et al, 1998, p. 363).

In other words: Part of sexual well-being is accepting who we are, uniquely, and feeling accepted in who we are, even if and when our sexuality, sexual identity, embodiment or the ways we are sexual does not conform to someone else’s ideas of what our sexualities should be or what our bodies should feel, look or function like.

xii. Awareness and acceptance that sex can be pleasurable.

Children learn to understand that it is acceptable for sexuality to be pleasurable in healthy development (SIECUS, 1995; WHO, 2002, p. 5). It is not shameful to enjoy it. It is a desirable outcome that when they become adults they will have to option of enjoying satisfying and high quality sexual relationships should they choose to do so (Okami et al, 1998, pp. 361, 365).

In other words: Sex isn’t just about making babies, something people only do because someone else wants or expects them to or something to exchange in order to get something else. It’s also about pleasure. In fact, when sex (of any kind, including masturbation) is truly wanted and consensual and when it occurs in healthy social contexts where everyone involved has agency, it’s most often mostly about pleasure. Seeking or experiencing sexual pleasure isn’t something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about: it can be a healthy, happy part of life.

xiii. Understanding of parental and societal values.

In healthy development, children learn social and parental values around sexuality to enable them to make informed decisions about their own sexuality in relation to them. These vary greatly (WHO, 2006: 6). Research shows that parental values around sexuality range from extremely conservative to extremely liberal (Okami et al, 1998), and that judgments about what is appropriate sexual behaviour in children differ dramatically in different societies (Aries, 1962; Higonnet, 1998; Jenkins, 1998).

In other words: Whether we wind up agreeing with them or not, it’s important we understand the values and ethics of our world and our closest communities, including those within our families. When we are aware of and understand those well, we can inform our choices with them and also work out what our own values are, whether they’re the same or different from the values of our parents or our culture.

xiv. Awareness of public/private boundaries. As a particular subset of values, children learn how the public/private distinction works in their culture as part of healthy sexual development. This allows them to manage their own privacy, understand public behaviour, and how to negotiate the boundaries between the two (Larsson & Svedin, 2002; Sanderson, 2004, p. 60).

In other words: A healthy sexuality involves boundaries, including boundaries between public and private expressions of sexuality, even though all people don’t have the same boundaries. As well, how we present our sexuality and put it into action often is different when it’s public and when it’s private, both in our individual experiences and when it comes to how we are treated by others. To make sound choices about sexual behavior and expression, choices which include keeping ourselves and others safe, we need to be aware of the differences between what’s public and what’s private.

In other words: Everyone knows that there is (as there always has been) sex and sexuality in all kinds of media. The media is a big presence in our world, especially over the last couple decades, so it’s important that we learn how to make sense of and ask questions about what we see, hear or read in it so that we can have a sense of its impact on us and others and know the difference between what the media shows us and how it presents it and how different sexuality can be and often is in real life.

Want to find out about some of those key domains at Scarleteen? The following articles are some places to get started:

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/06/09/what-healthy-sexual-development/feed/0Every Sperm is Your Brotherhttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/03/27/every-sperm-your-brother/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=every-sperm-your-brother
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/03/27/every-sperm-your-brother/#commentsSun, 27 Mar 2011 20:44:48 +0000After nearly 40 years working in the abortion field, I can see that the situation is hopeless. I admit it. Personhood begins at ejaculation!

]]>After nearly 40 years working in the abortion field, I can see that the situation is hopeless. I admit it. Personhood begins at ejaculation!

This realization came to me as I considered the dozens of bills in legislatures all over the country designed to limit access to or even criminalize abortion. I thought about the bill adopted in Oklahoma that allowed a doctor to withhold information about an abnormal pregnancy without fear of lawsuit if he thought a woman might choose abortion.

I thought about the felony law in Nebraska preventing abortion after 20 weeks, regardless of the woman’s circumstances. I thought about the mandatory ultrasounds proposed in 10 states—not to make sure that women had better healthcare, but to try to make them feel even worse than they already do.

I thought about the ‘heartbeat’ bills that would eliminate even early abortion. It’s hard to talk about a heartbeat without thinking the pregnancy is a baby, even when the ‘heartbeat’ may just be a tiny electrical impulse in an embryo an inch long. The conversations totally ignore a woman’s heart. This kind of bill supposes that pregnant women have no idea there is something alive inside them that will become a baby if they don’t do something about it.

Well, duh. That is why women have abortions! Because they know that in their circumstances they cannot responsibly bring a new life into the world through their body. It is all about caring for their lives, the lives of their family and even the life that could be born. Women are not the enemies of our children—even those we don’t have. I thought about the Representative in Georgia who called all abortions ‘prenatal murder’ and proposed that abortion be punished as a homicide. And I thought about the long waiting period passed in South Dakota, and the almost unbelievable requirement that women there be forced to be ‘counseled’ by anti-abortion fake clinics. And as I was totally overwhelmed by the woman-hating, woman-fearing energy that went into thinking up these diabolical laws, I just gave up.

Then it became obvious that, of course, women really are merely sin-filled vessels for new life which is innocent, sacred and worthy of protection at all costs. In fact, I became so aware of the sacredness of unborn life, that I recognized that we have almost forgotten the sacredness of the very seeds of life. Let’s face it, a darling cuddly little sperm is just one tiny cell away from being a person—and that cell is an egg, which comes from a woman, so it hardly counts. I always heard that there are about 300,000,000 (give or take) sperm in every ejaculation. Of course you may say they are only potential people, but all it takes is one cell and time and that vivacious, squirmy little sperm will be a bouncing baby—a boy if you are lucky. That’s a lot of people who should be paying taxes, and who will be our future soldiers.

So I am announcing the founding of the Sperm Protection and Information League (SPIL). Our motto is, Don’t Spill Your Seed.

I hate to remind you of the slaughter, but every day billions of sperm die an agonizing death of dehydration in socks, towels, and. well…places you cannot even imagine. Studies have shown that sperm feel pain while they are still in the testes. A little known scientific fact is that these sperm in pain are the source of the heartbreaking malady known as ‘Blue Balls.’ Besides this very real pain, for years the vicious Women’s Lib Birth Control Movement has sought to deprive sperm of the very thing they need to stay alive—an egg. It is surely the birthright of every sperm to have the opportunity to swim toward an egg. And damnit, that egg had better be there! God made that egg to be out there, and let the best sperm win! Now, please don’t think I am making any reference here to evolution, which I know is wrong, because Senators are not monkeys.

We must no longer tolerate any of this birth control pill, chemical genocide, that allows the egg to hide within the woman’s body. It is God’s law that an egg is supposed to submit to and care for a sperm, just as a woman is supposed to submit to and care for a man. In case you are wondering, yes, this is the real evil of homosexuality and masturbation. Among the perverted, countless sperm are being ejaculated where there is no egg to nurture them. We all know that those lesbians who are wasting their eggs every month instead of making them available to a needy sperm are just the Daughters of the Devil, as we all know.

You might wonder if SPIL is calling for any punishment for men whose seed spills. If they are homosexual they must be punished to the highest degree—after all spermal homicide is no laughing matter. But if they are good heterosexuals, it is never the fault of the man if there is no woman to accept and vivify his sperm. Since the time of Eve, women’s desire for freedom has ruined everything.

So, men, make sure to wear boxers so you don’t keep those little pre-conceived darlings too warm. And women—be ready to provide an egg whenever a sperm is in need. In the vast scheme of things we may sometimes feel alone—but remember, every ejaculation is full of little tiny people, and every sperm is your brother.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/03/27/every-sperm-your-brother/feed/10Get Real! How Long Does it Take to Become a Virgin Again?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/12/29/real-long-does-take-becomevirgin-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=real-long-does-take-becomevirgin-again
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/12/29/real-long-does-take-becomevirgin-again/#commentsWed, 29 Dec 2010 15:39:47 +0000Virginity is an intellectual concept, idea, belief, and perhaps most accurately, a word for identity some people use, usually to identify when they or others have not had certain sexual experiences

I know that it takes a woman up to 7 years after having intercourse to become a virgin again. Is that true? Is it also the same for a girl between the ages of 12 and 15? If they are both true, could you please explain to me how that happens? If you could get back to me as soon as possible that would be fully appreciated.

Heather Corinna replies:

We talk about this a lot here at Scarleteen: virginity isn’t physical or anything that can be universally proven or disproven with body parts.

It’s an intellectual concept, an idea, a belief, and perhaps most accurately, a word for identity some people use, usually to identify when they or others have not had certain sexual experiences. What those experiences are vary, because not everyone has or uses the same definition of this word. All people also don’t share the same experiences or definitions of sex, or certain physical activities which are sometimes sex, but aren’t other times, in large part because any activity which can be sex can also be rape or other kinds of abuse. Too, a definition of virginity or partnered sex based in something physical, being done to or with the body without accounting for everyone’s motives and feelings could not only be sex or rape, it could also be describing things that can be part of in sexual healthcare, bathing, grooming, itching (literally, not figuratively), childbirth, various kinds of injuries, curiosity, or masturbation.

For a very long time, there was a fairly global belief that virginity was physical, and something only applied to women’s bodies and women’s social status. The belief was that virginity was effectively about the hymen — or corona, a very thin, flexible membrane that is usually just inside the vaginal opening at birth — not being fully intact or visible, and that what happened when virginity was “lost” or “taken” was that the hymen was broken. What that belief overlooked, in large part because people didn’t know better, was that that tissue not only is not some kind of seal, it’s supposed to degrade over time — both wearing away and back, winding up with its edges surrounding the vaginal opening in some way — and will usually tend to do that with or without any kind of sex at all. (If in doubt, consider how many young women you probably know who have not had any kind of sex, but have their periods, which couldn’t flow out if the vaginal opening was sealed shut.) It also overlooked that when intercourse was and is something the person with said hymen desired, felt ready for and gave consent to, and when they had a partner who was attentive, hymens don’t tend to “get broken” at all, but instead, just wear away a little more sometimes with genital sex.

In some areas and some places people still believe the things above that we know now are not true, or don’t believe them, but choose to behave as if they still are true. But they’re not, and acting as if they are won’t make it so.

I suspect what you’re asking is if the hymen can grow back once it has worn away, in whole or in part. It can’t. As I explained, it’s supposed to wear away, and once it has, in whatever way it has at whatever pace it has, it’s not going to magically grow back. You might also be asking if there’s a certain time period where if someone doesn’t have given kind of sex if it physically might feel like their first time again, per feeling very tight or painful. Maybe, but maybe not: not everyone’s first times are painful or uncomfortable, especially when sex is wanted and something people are ready for. If after going a while without a certain kind of sex, it feels painful, that’s most likely about someone doing things in such a way that make them painful or unpleasant — like being scared, not using lubricant as needed, or rushing into intercourse — rather than because of any physical changes to their bodies.

While I suspect that may answer your question all by itself, I’d like to talk a bit more about this, and address a couple other recent questions we’ve had on this subject.

Anonymous asks:

Can I become a virgin again? I already had sex. It wasn’t terrible, I wasn’t forced into anything it was okay I guess. But my boyfriend and I broke up a while back and it wasn’t as perfect as we all want the first time to be. I want a do-over. Can I get one without pretending to be something I’m not or lying about having sex before?

Yes, you can! In fact, you can get as many do-overs as you want without pretending or lying.

I’ll be forthright about my personal feelings about virginity as a term: I don’t like it. That isn’t to say I have any issue with, or am not supportive of, people deciding to give whatever weight they do to their experiences and ideals. I also am completely supportive of anyone deciding, before, during or after, that any given sexual experience (or lack thereof), activity or scenario has a particular value to them. My issue is with the term itself, which has long been intensely sexist and associated with an awful lot of misogyny, sexual violence and other violence against women and other forms of oppression. In a word, I know too much, and what I know sucks.

While I think we can reclaim some words, potentially shifting them from an oppressive negative into a powerful positive, I’m not sure how with this one. The history around this term is just so awful, and our culture is still so sexist and uses the term for some ways of oppressing people, not to mention that it’s so vague a term it’s all but meaningless in some ways. As well, what I notice is that people who use it usually subscribe to some of the ideas or ideals affixed to the history of the term, like suggesting sex is about taking something away from someone, rather than making something new, like presenting women’s bodies as property in some way, like affixing a social status to people based on their sexual experiences or lack of them, so I’d not call that reclaiming. I would suggest folks at least consider choosing to describe what you would with that word with different words, more positive words of phrases, language that is more clear and less mired in bad stuff.

That’s my own opinion. Your own, whatever it is, is no less important or valuable. If it’s a term you want to use, and which you feel works for you, then you get to use it. But for the sake of trying to use language that isn’t steeped in big yuck, and with the aim of giving more meaning and clarity to things you want to be meaningful and clear, I want to propose some alternatives.

For instance, instead of saying “I’m a virgin,” or “I’m not a virgin,” or “I wish I could be a virgin again,” how about: “I haven’t participated in [whatever kind of] sex yet.” “I haven’t had vaginal intercourse before.” “I haven’t had sex with someone I love before.” “I haven’t engaged in sex I felt satisfied with yet.” “I haven’t experienced sex that felt like sex to me yet.” “I was sexually assaulted or abused: I haven’t yet had consensual sex.” “I’ve changed a lot since I did sex in the past, so I feel like I’m starting over with it.” “I haven’t been part of sex with a partner of [whatever gender] yet.” “I haven’t had sex when I identified as [whatever gender, orientation or other identity] yet. “I haven’t been part of sex yet that I’ve actually enjoyed.” “I did have sex already, but it just wasn’t what I wanted it. I want to have sex that’s the way I envision it at its best.” “I haven’t experienced sex in this kind of relationship before.” “I haven’t been involved in sex since I knew what I wanted or felt able to ask for it.” “I haven’t had sex since I really felt ready for it.” “I have had sex before, but I wasn’t happy with it, and I feel like I’d like to restart my sex life fresh, and aim to do that.” “I didn’t realize what sex was before and that’s what I was doing, so I feel like now that I do is when I’m really having my first times.”Or, what you said yourself: “I already had sex. It wasn’t terrible, I wasn’t forced into anything it was okay I guess. But my boyfriend and I broke up a while back and it wasn’t as perfect as we all want the first time to be. I want a do-over.”

All of those things are okay things to say, and they are things that people talking honestly and openly about sex and their sexual history do and may say. If you think you’d be the first person in the world saying them, you’d be wrong. It also may not be the first time any sexual partner you may have heard something like that, either, and you may even run into a partner who also feels one of those ways themselves.

That said, for someone who does want to use the word virginity and not an alternative, because virginity is not physical or factual, and because its definitions are myriad, arbitrary and often personal, I don’t see any reason why any given person isn’t entitled to their own definition, too.

That’s the precedent that’s long been set, after all: whole cultures have created their definitions for their own purposes or agendas, including definitions that were knowingly false, and a whole lot of people have too, often people who weren’t even identifying themselves, but prescribing identities, statuses or values to others. So, I figure you get to decide what it means just as arbitrarily as anyone else, especially since since no matter how you use it, there is still not going to be any unilateral definition where everyone you say it to will know what you mean or won’t just assume you define it however they do.

I do think it’s important to be honest with sexual partners and to avoid any words or language that are dishonest or knowingly give false impressions. Saying or implying you haven’t had a kind of physical contact that you have can, for example, incline someone to choose to take potential health risks they wouldn’t choose to take otherwise, or to ditch safety measures they’d otherwise insist on. That’s not cool. Plus, we’re all generally most likely to have satisfying sex we feel good about when we are who we are, and represent ourselves honestly, including our life experiences. Do make sure that whatever words or phrases you choose to use, they’re honest and express what is true.

I want to talk about that perfect you think everyone wants the first time to be. Not only is everyone’s idea of perfect different, in reality, that “perfect” you have in mind probably doesn’t exist or, at the very least, is more likely to be a reality much further down the road than with a first time. You’re talking about an ideal, possibly even a fantasy. There’s nothing wrong with having those, but when we do, we have to acknowledge that’s what they are, and while our realities can sometimes resemble them, or wind up meeting the needs we have in them without being just like them, they’re still not realities, but ideals or fantasies. In reality, the first time people have any kind of sex is often a lot like the first time we do anything new: it’s really far from perfect because we haven’t had any practice at it yet and are just trying it for the first time.

I’d say that sex is one of those places and things in life where our imperfections get shown up a lot more than perfection does, and that isn’t a bad thing, but one of the best things about it. Sex can be a place where everyone can be human — sticky, sweaty, fleshy, awkward, clumsy, murky, newbie, dizzy, silly, super-quirky-human — and thus, necessarily imperfect, and enjoy and celebrate themselves; be accepted and accepting. It’s a place where we or anyone else should never have to be perfect or feel like we have to, which can be an awfully nice break from the situations in life in which we’re given a lot less freedom and latitude to be imperfect.

Ashley_Nicole asks:

I think I’m physically ready to have sex. But on the emotional side I’m fractioned…1/4 of me says no and the other 3/4’s says yes. I don’t want to have ANY regrets, what do I do?

There is also nothing we can do, in sex or any part of life, to assure we won’t have any regrets. Ever. If there was, and I knew about it, I promise I’d tell you. I just explained to someone else a couple of weeks ago that there is no perfect sexual choice, just like there’s no perfect any choice. All there ever is is the best choice we can make for yourselves with the information, insight and skills we have at a given time.

However, there are some things we can do to best avoid regret, and some things we can do to manage feelings of regret when and if we have them and use them to help us out.

One of the big things you’ve already identified is paying attention to your own feelings and instincts. That 25% of you that says it’s not right yet? Listen to that part. Give it weight and value, acknowledging it to be as deeply important as it is (which is deeply important). When sex really is right, the first time or the 501st, your heart and your head will tend to be in alignment. As much of yourself as can say go to something will be cheering for the same team. While our intuition and feelings aren’t all we need to make our own best choices, paying attention to them and not acting against them is crucial.

What else? Information. Do you feel like you’re pretty filled in on what to expect — for as much as we can be — with sex and what people tend to need to be really ready for all of it? Feel like you know what you need to to both make your choice and manage your choice? If not, you can look at something like this, or this, or this, or this to get some more information to inform your choices.

Since there’s more than just you involved in partnered sex, you can talk about your feelings and thoughts about this with the other person involved. That’s not required, and some people don’t or don’t always. But when we’re feeling uncertain, it’s a good call to talk it out with our potential partner. If this does have an emotional aspect for you — and really, all sex does for everyone to some degree, even the most casual of casual sex — then you probably want to talk about this together. Filling them in on what you think and feel, seeing how they react to what you say, and then finding out how they feel can give you information you wouldn’t otherwise have to help you (and them) make your own best choices.

Do you feel like you — and whoever the other person potentially involved is — have the skills you need to manage sex well at this time? Are you in a place in your life where sex will add the good stuff, rather than adding anxiety, stress, heartbreak or drama? Try and be as honest with yourself as you can about what you really feel able to handle right now, and if you think now’s not the right time and space to handle all that we may have to with sex, emotionally and practically — opt out until you feel more capable, and invest some time and energy in cultivating the skills you think you may need to build up more, like good communication and negotiation skills or assertiveness.

One other thing to know is just like with any other sound choice and agreement (in this case, you and someone else agreeing to have whatever kinds of sex you are in the ways you’re agreeing to have them), you should always feel you can opt out. That’s not anything exceptional: for sex to be healthy and consensual, everyone always should be able to opt out at any time, even if and when you’ve agreed and then you’re about to do whatever it is and find you suddenly feel like it just isn’t right. Having that be a constant given is a really important part of consent, which you can read up on here.

Once people have started going through puberty, most people are pretty much physically “ready” for sex per their bodies being able to function sexually. But since there are so many kinds of sex and many don’t require any one way of the body functioning, I’d say that “physical readiness” is the least important part of this that there is. If sex was only about our bodies, that’d be the only thing we’d need to consider, but it’s so not.

I hope you can see from the questions above yours and my answers to them that obviously some folks do experience regret or wish they’d made choices differently. Now, some of what’s in that probably isn’t just about how people made their choices, but about the many people conceptualize sex, sexuality and sexual experiences. Some of those conceptualizations are problematic for various reasons. For instance, when we hear from people who regret their first sexual choices, so much of the time it’s because they’re thinking they only get that one first time with sex, when in fact, we get first-times all the time, whether that’s because we have a new partner or just because we’re trying or experiencing something in a different way than we did in the past. The truth is, our sexual choices are always important, not just once. Hopefully that doesn’t make you feel more stressed out, because that’s not what I intend: I just want to make clear that we are always making these choices and they are always important, so if any one time we feel like we got it wrong, we always have more chances to get it right. As well, we always need to recognize that getting something just perfecty-perfect right the first time out is as unrealistic with sex as it is with anything else. We get better at this, all of us — having kinds of sex and making sexual choices — with practice over time.

So, what if you find that even when you do all of what I’m suggesting here — trusting your heart and your head both, having lots of information that you use in your decision-making, talking with partners honestly — you make a choice you regret in some way? Well, first of all, if you do all that, you probably won’t. Most people who voice feeling regret with these choices didn’t do those things.

But in the case you did, then you’d cut yourself a break, acknowledge you did all you could do to make your best choice, and remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes or only learns certain things through error. None of us come into this life knowing all these is to know, or done with our learning at birth: we all learn as we go, and probably don’t ever know all we could know, so we’re bound to make mistakes or missteps now and then. If you ask me, if we are kind to and thoughtful with ourselves and others, if we do our best to be as self-aware as we can, and we make sure we’re never leaping into things we know we or others don’t want or just can’t handle, then whatever mistakes we make, they’re just not going to be that bad. We’ll live, seriously, and something we think is the most horrendous mistake at a given time in life tends to soften over time, and we’ll often realize was even of value to us because of what we learned through it.

I want to leave all of you a few more links to look at, with my best wishes, and my hope that all of you, whatever your choices in the past, present or future, feel empowered to seek out what you want and think of yourself and your sex life in ways that make you feel good about yourselves.